Marvel Super Heroes arcade machine, featuring colourful artwork with characters from Marvel comics on it.

Marvel Super Heroes

Marvel Super Heroes is a fighting game developed and published by Capcom in 1995. The system is built on Capcom’s successful CPS2 hardware.

This game is inspired by the "The Infinity Gauntlet" storyline from the Marvel Universe. It marks the second Capcom fighting game featuring characters from Marvel Comics, following X-Men: Children of the Atom, and i t served as a precursor to the Marvel Vs. Capcom series.

The game plays very much in the spirit of other Capcom fighters like Street Fighter 2. The games story centres around the conflict between heroes and villains as they vie for the powerful Infinity Gems. The primary villain is Thanos, who wants to use the Infinity stones to dominate the universe.

Much like other Capcom fighters, the aim of the game is to utilise attacks and special abilities to either knock out your opponent or be the player with the most life at the end of the round. During the match, players accumulate a super meter that can be spent to execute powerful Infinity Combo attacks.

A distinctive feature of the game is the Infinity Gems: Power, Time, Space, Reality, Soul, and Mind. These gems can be acquired by defeating opponents in arcade mode or by meeting specific conditions in versus mode, like landing the first hit. When these gems are used in combat, fighters gain enhanced effects for a limited time, such as boosted power or defence, health regeneration, or extra attacks. Certain fighters gain additional advantages when using specific gems. For instance, if Spider-Man activates the Power Gem, he can summon a doppelganger on the opposite side of his opponent, dealing extra damage during his assaults.

When it was released in the arcades it gained mainly favourable reviews. Computer and Video Games gave it a perfect score of 5 out of 5. Next Generation’s review said the game "combines numerous combo-driven attacks with fluid animation to rival some of the top fighters available." Also stating that the game’s excellent 2D graphical style made a refreshing change from the amount of 3D fighters which were the norm at the time.

The control panel for Marvel Superheroes Arcade machine with a blue joystick and colourful buttons.